Page 53 of Undefined Terms

Like that’s enough.

Rhiannon looks me up and down. Doesn’t hide it. ‘Bloody hell, Cel. You didn’t say.’

‘What.’

‘Nothing. He builds things. Got it.’ The grin. She sticks her hand out. I shake it. Small hand, strong grip. ‘You’re the site manager? The big development?’

‘Victoria North. Block C.’

‘My cousin’s put a deposit on one of those flats. If the heating doesn’t work I’m blaming you personally.’

‘Fair enough.’

She turns back to Celyn. ‘I like him. Quiet, useful, probably knows where the stopcock is. You need that.’

Celyn’s hand on my wrist. Still there. The heat of the grip and the bouncer jacket and the bloke with the sandy hair watching from across the room.

‘Ready?’ Celyn says to me.

‘Yes.’

The half-smile, the real one.

We walk. The air’s cold, the February kind that gets into the bones. Celyn’s got my jacket, threw it over the dress because the cardigan’s too thin, and the shoes click on the pavement, and the jacket hangs past the hands, the hem of the dress sticking out at the bottom.

My jacket, on Celyn. I’m walking through Manchester in a t-shirt in February and I’m not cold.

‘You’re going to get ill,’ Celyn says.

‘I’m fine.’

‘You’ve got goosebumps.’

‘That’s from the reading.’

Celyn stops walking, looks at me. The streetlight on the postbox lips, my jacket held shut against the wind.

‘That might be the best thing anyone’s ever said to me about my writing,’ Celyn says.

Shrug, keep walking. Celyn catches up, the heels clicking again.

‘When did you start writing it?’ I say. After a minute. Two. A gap that’d be awkward with someone else.

Celyn pulls a wipe from the bag, starts taking the makeup off. The dark red comes off on the white cloth in streaks, the face appearing underneath, paler, the real skin showing through. Like plaster coming off a wall.

‘The first draft? About ten months ago. But the idea’s older. There was this.’ Stops. The wipe on the cheek, the lipstick half-gone, the mouth two colours. Changes direction. ‘The house came first. Then the character.’

Ten months. I count back to last spring. Coming to Manchester every other weekend by then, contract not started, site visits going. Drive up Friday night, back Sunday morning. And somewhere in those weekends Celyn started writing a novel about a house that changes shape and a woman who stops noticing the walls move.

Coincidence. Course it is.

‘Ron.’

‘Yeah.’

‘You’re doing the face.’

‘What face.’